Tag Archives: advertising

Ikea: undercover music marketing

By May 3 2011, 2:08 pm Leave a comment

The furniture retailer has created some interesting promotions of
late, from releasing cats across its store to utilsing stand up
comedians, right through to its unique 365-day project which created daily ads. Read more »

Ford’s hands-on American Idol product placements

By March 18 2010, 10:50 am Leave a comment

Some would argue that music-based talent contests are nothing more than a production line for pop stars. We’ll they’d be wrong – they also make cars too.  


American Idol is one of the prime resources for embedded brands in the US TV market, ranking amongst the most coveted and active product placement media channels available. At a time when marketers are culling ad spend the role of embedded media is upping its presence. One such brand pushing its AI integrations hard is Ford, which has announced that the top 12 contestants will now feature in a segment which will see them designing and customising 2011 Ford Fiestas. Yes, you heard right, Casey James (vehicle design pictured above) and other finalists will be part of the Ford production line. “This year, the Idols will get a closer experience with our vehicles as they interact with our designers and customize a Fiesta design that reflects their own personality,” said Connie Fontaine, manager, Ford Brand Content and Alliances.

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Music is a perfect brand Match

By March 9 2010, 11:19 am 2 Comments

Here’s an inspiring piece of turnaround advertising from dating website Match.com which sees the online brand shifting its positioning to a more musical one with its £7M ‘Start Your Love Story’ marketing campaign. The new commercial features an ’accidental duet’ between a girl and a boy in a music shop and features the specially created track ‘Just Like Me’. You can pick up the song via the SoundCloud music service, and there is also the option to follow the two singers on Twitter at ‘jackmatch’ and ‘jillmatch’ respectively (the first 100 of which will enter a draw to win a year’s free membership).

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The BRIT Awards brand endorsement showcase

By February 16 2010, 12:49 pm 1 Comment

The Annual BRIT Awards take place tonight marking one of the key moments in the UK’s music calendar. Perhaps even more so this year as the event celebrates its 30th broadcast.  Music sales will undoubtedly rise post event – albeit temporally – as the cream of the UK’s popular music scene take to the stage. However, aside from the compelling performances (and the media gripes about who has and hasn’t been nominated) there is another undercurrent of interest that barely gets a mention. In many ways the event is a showcase of musical acts that brands, seeking to impact the popular youth market, should be honing in on – if they haven’t already.

With labels and artists eager to supplement their declining recording revenue with lucrative brand alignments the stage is set to highlight some of the UK’s biggest players in this space tonight. If you are shopping for a mass-market appeal act then the BRIT Awards is offering you a one-stop shopping channel for the few hours it broadcasts.  A quick scan of the acts performing tonight highlights their ongoing brand appeal, with the majority of artists present involved in brand alignments running concurrently with the event: Cheryl Cole (L’Oreal), Kasabian (Umbro), JLS (Nokia), Lily Allen (Xbox), Dizzie Rascal (Nike), and Florence and the Machine (a saturation of syncs across UK TV).

Pixie Lott, one of the BRITs’ most nominated acts – who performed at the launch event – has spent the last year racking up a string of endorsement deals (Nokia, Casio, Guitar Hero, River Island, EA, Orange, O2, and MySpace – to name just a few). Even Lady Gaga – one of the international acts taking to the BRITS stage – is open for branded business, having recently signed up to a creative partnership with Polaroid.

Although not on a par with the Grammys or the Super Bowl, it will be worth watching the ad breaks to see just which brands are utilising music around the event. Last year Coca-Cola chose to break its Duffy cycling commercial during the BRITs, and ITV itself decided to run a competition pitching ad agencies against each other for some of the lucrative commercial partnership slots.

Of course the biggest brand of the evening is MasterCard who recently
decided to extend the UK’s longest running music sponsorship for a further
three years. Bearing in mind the MasterCard sponsorship I’d be highly surprised if Barclaycard didn’t roll out the roller-coaster version of its water slide commercial during one of the breaks.  Finance entities aside, one of the brands definitely taking a slot is O2. The mobile brand intends to push its Top-up Surprises programme, offering every one of their users a ‘gold’ surprise – the likes of which could include becoming a popstar for the day with Rihanna.

A full 30 year’s on and the BRIT Awards now operate in a music ecosystem where sales are fleeting and brand alignments offer artists a whole new gamut of opportunity. (Not to mention the opportunities for the event itself which even has its own official watch sponsor.)   However, from the brand side – as with normal TV shopping channels – it’s probably best not to go for an impulse buy tonight. That’s not to say that the acts on show don’t all have their place amid the right campaign. However, entering into an unconsidered alignment, without proper research behind the brand fit, means there is a real chance the endorsement you thought was solid gold could turn out to be an expensive Diamonique stone around your brand’s neck.

For more on ensuring music endorsements work for your brand see our previous article. 

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Product placement ban lift could revitalise music TV

By February 10 2010, 11:48 am 1 Comment

As the UK Government lifts a ban on product placement in British TV programmes, could The X Factor become the UK Super Bowl for brands?  If placement traction in the US is anything to go by it certainly could.
 
The introduction of product placement offers something of a desperate lifeline to the beleaguered broadcasting industry. UK Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw stated that keeping an enforced ban “would lead to continuing damage” of the creative industries and that to do so would also “jeopardise the competitiveness of UK programme-makers against the rest of the EU”. The decision leaves Denmark as the only EU country with a ban in place and new shows utilising the format are expected to roll out in the UK later this year.
 
The news may have a major impact on the way music reality shows – such as The X Factor – are handled in the UK. In America – where product placement accounts for around 5-6% of the advertising market – reality shows stole all the top 10 product placement slots in the US in 2009, according to Nielsen. American Idol featured 4,349 product placements during a recent run – which included a $35M deal with Coca-Cola. This brand saturation saw the Fox TV network generating $903M in advertising revenue in 2008 around the show. It’s not difficult to see how this will be replicated in the UK. ITV was apparently selling 30-second ad slots to late buyers for an estimated £190,000 – £250,000 in the run up to Christmas and product placements are bound to be equally lucrative.   Some experts believe new deals could raise as much as £125M annually for the broadcasting industry, although UK broadcasting regulator Ofcom is estimating that product placement could make a more realistic £25M to £35M within five years of launching.
 
Either way the prospects seem bright amid a £3B TV advertising market that is predicted to decline into 2012. However, some broadcasters are concerned that the news will simply divert marketing resources rather than provide additional funds. Also many advertisers are concerned over the additional ‘blacklist’ – against alcohol brands and food and drinks high in fat, salt or sugar – put in place by the UK Government. “If you take out HFSS and alcoholic drinks, those are the two areas most likely to get excited about product placement,” said one broadcaster.
 
A more interesting question for the music business is whether the recent interest in ad-funded music (such as Spotify) could now swing back to TV and usher in a wave of brand sponsored music TV models. Product placement in Internet music-based dramas – where restrictions don’t apply – have been utilised previously, such as Universal Music and Bebo’s online drama ‘The Secret World of Sam King’ in 2008 (which featured placement by Sony Ericsson). However, these audiences are minuscule when compared to national TV exposure.
 
Arguably the UK music industry has had to position its artists as ‘placed products’ on TV for some considerably time both in stand alone shows and within established dramas. As recording revenues continue to fall the gentle nudge towards deeper brand alignments rapidly becomes a shove of necessity. With the death of the traditional music television format – depicted by Top of the Pops/MTV’s TRL – could product placement see a resurgence of ad-funded music television? With artists and brands both crying out for greater exposure the lifting of the ban potentially opens up a wealth of opportunity. The X Factor hit its highest ever audience figures last year, making it unlikely to move from pole position for some time, but the next generation of integrated brand led music TV could be ushered in sooner than we realise with household names taking centre stage.

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Music awards see 150% endorsement ad rise

By February 5 2010, 3:48 pm 2 Comments

 The 52nd Grammy Awards netted an average of 25.8M viewers, representing a rise of 32% over the same event in 2009, making it the most watched Grammy’s since 2004. A large part of this can be attributed to the calibre of artists performing and a renewed social media push for the annual awards show pre event. However, some of the best music wasn’t actually taking place on stage at all.  

Artists such as the Black Eyed Peas, Pearl Jam, Nick Jonas, Shiny Toy Guns and Eric Clapton all made appearances across ads from Mastercard, Lincoln, T-Mobile and Target during the broadcast. In fact a GreenLight Ad Gauge of the event highlights how 15% of the Grammy ad breaks saw brands utilising celebrity endorsements, up a massive 150% on the previous year. Around 22% of these advertisements made use of licensed music (around the same as in 2009), with only 3% of brands using jingles (McDonald’s and Outback Steakhouse, to name two). “Last year, we saw brands cut costs by focusing mostly on the licensing of pop music to maintain some celebrity presence in their ads,” said David Reeder, Vice President, GreenLight. “This year, we’re seeing brands again use music to connect with consumers, but they’re also signing music acts and other stars to maximize the reach and impact of their message”.

Interestingly it was commercials from the auto industry that made the biggest use of endorsements, with 26% making use of celebrities and/or music. One such brand, which looked to make a sizeable impact with music during the Grammys, was Ford. The auto brand is a regular partner with music in the US, having sponsored American Idol for a number of years (with campaigns such as the Ford Music Video Sweepstakes). Ford’s Lincoln car brand used its advertising slots during the Awards to showcase a series of commercials – for the Lincoln MKZ, MKT and MKS – featuring US band Shiny Toy Guns performing their version of the 1983 Peter Schilling track ‘Major Tom (Coming Home)’. Visitors to a dedicated website could also see exclusive live concert footage of both Shiny Toy Guns and Australian singer Sia (who also sound-tracks one of the new Lincoln ads). In addition to the current ad campaign, those frequenting the site are also being encouraged to participate in a crowd-sourced campaign which will see them voting for one of four emerging bands to perform a song to accompany the next Lincoln ad. There is also a sweepstakes to win one of the vehicles and a chance to see Shiny Toy Guns in concert.

So is it working? Is the car brand’s use of music having the desired effect? The Ad Gauge report suggested the brand arrived  “a day late and a dollar short to the American Idol phenomenon” – an odd choice of word’s given Ford’s commitment to the long-running talent contest. The truth here is that Ford’s ongoing bid to utilise younger consumer touch-points is apparently impacting sales. From 2005 to 2009 Lincoln’s share of the luxury segment rose by a sizeable 30%. During this time their ads have feature music by Daft Punk and Cat Power (who cover Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ in 2008). If that isn’t enough Ford itself has also just announced a 25% jump in sales in January 2010 over 2009.

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What’s the future of music sourcing & buying for brands? Part one

By October 1 2009, 4:29 pm 1 Comment

Many of us in agencies, record labels, music publishers and music consultancies are looking to answer this question.

There are many issues to consider, most of which concern how one interest group is changing its relationship with another:

* Brand & agency relationships
* Music talent & music industry relationships
* Music consumer & music industry relationships

 
For this piece, let’s look at the changing nature of brand & agency relationships. We need to look back first before looking forward.

Agencies (of all kinds) have historically been the gatekeepers of client relationships. Agencies recruited and managed supply chains, and suppliers were kept away from clients. Agencies were always positioned as the experts to make the best decisions on:

* Creative collaborators (or creative assets) for a particular project. In ATL, key collaborators include the director/production company, the on-screen talent, the post-house and the music production company/composer. Creative assets include stock footage and existing music tracks.
* The commercial terms on which these creative collaborators were engaged or creative assets were purchased.

Many agencies liked to maintain linear top-down operational relationships with suppliers in order to :

* Control the creative agenda
* Control the financial agenda (allowing mark-up on supplier invoices)

Where the agency’s creative agenda (i.e. getting the client to sign-off the work) was served by delaying creative decisions, this would often impact the financial agenda by raising supplier costs. Nowhere more is this true than for licensed music where 11th hour clearances inevitably come with premium level licensing fees. Given agencies aren’t spending their own money, this situation served both agencies and favoured suppliers well. This became even more true as client procurement departments shaved margins on agency fees, which agencies sought to replace with mark-ups on supplier costs.

During the early-mid noughties, the linear top-down model began to be challenged through the rise of client procurement departments and independent production/marketing procurement consultancies. These specialists started to demand better justification for agency creative decisions in relation to the corresponding costs. Invoices were demanded and examined, and in some case poor (or borderline negligent) practices were uncovered. The harsh economic realities of 2008 & 2009 have exacerbated clients’ need to secure best value in all purchases. Cost inefficiencies (i.e. overpaying) that might have been tolerated in the good times pre Summer 2007, are certainly intolerable during 2009 into 2010.

So what next? What will the future look like?

The obvious answer is decoupling – the removal of campaign execution from agencies. Of course agencies are fighting back hard against this trend. They need to protect mark-up on supplier costs which frequently covers the overhead of in-house production staff (where the agency fee no longer does).  The truth is that decoupling won’t work in every case, though increasingly clients are considering it.

One interesting recent development here:

Campaign’s graduate-focussed issue of 25th September ’09 included an article by recent agency recruits entitled “If I Launched An Agency”. Common predictions about future agencies throughout the various pieces were:

* Minimal numbers of employed staffers
* High reliance on outsourced expertise
* No fixed physical presence
* Constantly adapting agency identity including name

This points perhaps to a future where lean agencies hold the high ground on brand strategy & creative, but outsource execution to avoid the overhead of hiring & housing production departments. Remote contractors across all production disciplines (including music) will work directly for clients within an outsourced web, coordinated by production and marketing procurement consultants. This situation already exists for some clients who no longer want to support the overhead of large roster agencies – sadly this has led to redundancies in many places. The opportunities are now there for specialist contractors who can add more value, at greater speed for lower costs.

So what are the key tips here for clients?

1. Insist on competitive tendering for production suppliers and don’t rely on one recommendation as the sole solution.

 
2. Insist on greater visibility in the supplier chain. Know the end-recipients of your production budget and ensure you’re receiving the full value of their product/service and not losing it through mark-ups.

3. Take advantage of best-practice process from those with niche expertise in specific fields – this will include music, on-screen talent and photography. Demand that those who buy products/services on your behalf are fully aligned with the brand’s agenda. A loyal partner should be able to look the client in the eye and truthfully answer the question: “What’s a fair price to pay for ….?”

4. Audit productions after the event. Was the optimum cost-efficiency achieved? If not, why not? Learn from mistakes and instil process to avoid repetition.

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UK Brand investment in music totals £89M in 2008

By July 22 2009, 1:27 pm 1 Comment

A new report from UK royalty collection society PRS for Music points to growth within the music sector despite the economic problems and continuing piracy issues – with the overall size of the UK music industry growing by 4.7% to be worth £3.6B in 2008. The report also highlights the need to create a balanced account of revenue across the full spectrum of the industry. As well as traditional label revenue, and the substantial live market, the wide reach derived from B2B revenues, such as licensing, advertising and sponsorship, increased by 10% to £925M during 2008, despite a slump in spending by major advertisers. You can download the full PRS report here.
 
Will Page, chief economist at PRS, emphasizes the importance of brand revenue to the overall picture. He highlights data provided by FRUKT – which outlines an £89M spend in music from brands – saying it “introduces us to a source of revenue which isn’t new, but has arguably been omitted from much of the industry analysis to date”. Advertising support (£24M) and live sponsorship (£23M) dominate, however there is a ground swell with regards to digital investment (up almost 20%) and brands being prepared to step away from the big names and events to embrace niche and emerging music. Jack Horner, Creative Director, FRUKT, says: “Brand investment in music is more innovative than ever before, with more consumer brands understanding that a long term view and clear definition of a role within music is critical to their acceptance and success. As brands move from the old approach of badging and towards developing content, music offers the opportunity to create truly engaging platforms. These investments in music are becoming a valuable revenue stream for the music industry, hence the openness with which all parties now approach collaborations and the increase in deals”.
 
Brand investment: the numbers
 
•    Advertising support = £24M (27%)
•    Live music sponsorship = £23M (27%)
•    TV = £25M (28%)
•    Event creation = £8M (10%)
•    Digital = £5M (5%)
•    Artist endorsement =  £3M (3%)
 
We’ll be looking at this area again in our upcoming FRUKT Music Intelligence Report 003. In the meantime it’s worth considering how ingrained endorsements have become in both the brand psyche and the bank accounts of major artists.  
 
Beyonce was ranked 4th on Forbes Celebrity 100 earlier this month with fairly staggering earnings of $87M. The Beyonce brand has gone from strength to strength with revenue diversifying away from the more traditional roots of album sales. That’s not to say she’s not shifting plenty of albums, around $29M of her earnings came in from direct music sales. However, other revenue generators based around the Beyonce brand dwarf this. She netted $14M in a combination of concert ticket and merchandise sales, highlighting the importance of her new tour on forthcoming earnings. However, putting album sales and live revenue to one side, Beyonce has pulled in $15M from her fashion line (Dereon) – she has announced her intention to give away Dereon handbags and a pair of Dereon sunglasses via a text competition during her current tour – and a massive $20M from brand endorsements.
 
With a string of endorsement campaigns for Armani, Nintendo, L’Oreal and Trident gum under her belt, the figures here highlight just how much brands are financing music. The question however is whether brands are getting the required ROI by aligning with artists in this way? Simply badging a product with a celebrity, or having product touched by the hand of a major singer can often provide the midas touch for artists but not always for the brand. Many brands are now moving to deeper relationships with musicians that offer additional creative freedom for the acts involved and also provide more long-term investment opportunities for fans. Badging certainly has its place, but followed up with deeper long-term music investment it can offer a more lucrative reward for all parties – brand, band and fan – over time.

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Ad-funded music streaming heats up

By July 14 2009, 3:30 pm 1 Comment

We7.com, the 4M track strong free streaming music service founded by Peter Gabriel, has announced that it has topped 2M monthly unique visitors. The news comes hot on the heels of its main competitor Spotify announcing its own 2M user landmark. However, this vast intake of users amounts to very little if advertisers don’t get behind both services, something highlighted well by We7 CEO Steve Purdam in a recent interview where he suggested the focus of the site was to “Sell more adverts, get more music, get more audience”. That is very much the priority order today, without advertisers on board survival is reliant purely on funding to ride out the downturn which is no doubt holding potential advertising back. With Spotify recently seeking a further £20M-£30M in investment, funding should keep the ad-funded ship afloat for a while longer. With few other bold options on the digital music deck, no one wants to see the ad-funded ship sink. The interesting part of We7′s 2M milestone is that 50% of that figure comes from it’s “play anywhere” strategy – where music is accessed via online media partners, including NME, the Guardian, the Sun and Daily Mirror. With added reach outside its site and users spending on average 30 minutes within the We7 site itself, the free consumer becomes a valuable customer for brands – but the question still remains as to whether brands can become key customers of these services and support them to a level that can sustain their business model long term?

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